Nov. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Israeli political leaders are
rallying around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu two months
before national elections as the conflict in the Gaza Strip
intensifies.

Most of the party leaders running against Netanyahu’s Likud
faction have expressed support for the government’s Gaza policy
and suspended public campaigning while rockets strike Israeli
cities. Labor party leader Shelly Yachimovich, who has
campaigned by criticizing Netanyahu’s economic and social
policies, said about Gaza that “regaining both deterrence
abilities and peace for residents of the south are achievable
goals.”

Netanyahu may lead Israel into its first ground offensive
since the Gaza invasion in 2008 following the first air attacks
on Jerusalem since the 1967 war. A poll published Nov. 19 in the
Haaretz newspaper showed 84 percent of Israelis support the Gaza
operation, though only 30 percent would support an invasion.

“If elections were held now, Netanyahu would easily win,”
Camil Fuchs, head of the Statistics and Operations Research
Department at Tel Aviv University who conducted the Haaretz poll
of 502 Israelis, said in a phone interview. “Historically
however, the impact of these military operations on the
electorate is not lasting.”

Fuchs pointed to the example to Israel’s previous Gaza
operation, initiated by a Kadima-led government in 2008, which
also enjoyed wide support while failing to stop Netanyahu from
attaining the premiership in the 2009 election.

Assassination

Israel started its current Gaza operation on Nov. 14 with
the targeted assassination of Ahmed al-Jabari, commander of the
militant wing of Hamas. Hamas is classified as a terrorist
organization by Israel, the U.S and the European Union.

Israel said it acted after an increase in rocket attacks
from the Hamas-ruled territory and an escalation in attacks on
its soldiers patrolling the Gaza border.

More than 95 Palestinians were killed in the first six days
of Israeli air strikes on Gaza, half of them civilians,
according to Ashraf al-Qedra of the Hamas-run Ministry of
Health. More than 1,000 rockets were fired into Israel during
that period, killing three people, the Israeli army said.

A risk for Netanyahu is that if a Gaza invasion were to go
wrong or fall short of its goal it might unravel political
solidarity and hurt his poll ratings.

‘Hawkish Reputation’

“If the outcome fails to stop the rockets, that would
weaken Netanyahu’s credentials on security, which is supposed to
be one of his strong points,” said Mark Heller, research fellow
at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv.

The Gaza operation is the first major military initiative
taken by Netanyahu in the seven years he has served as prime
minister, including his first term from 1996-1999.

“It’s ironic given Netanyahu’s hawkish reputation that
when he’s finally taken military action, it’s been fairly
restrained and precise,” said Gerald Steinberg, a political
scientist at Bar Ilan University outside Tel Aviv. “It also
answers some of the criticism about his indecisiveness, which
has come from both sides of the political spectrum.”

Support Netanyahu

For now, Heller says that Netanyahu’s lead is probably
strong enough for him to clinch victory. Even voters who might
desert his Likud faction over a less than successful Gaza
operation would probably still vote for ideologically similar
parties that would support Netanyahu in a coalition.

“Given the stability of the right-wing and left-wing blocs
in the Israeli electorate, it would have to be a really dramatic
development to swing the election,” Heller said in a telephone
interview.

Netanyahu last month merged his party with Foreign Minister
Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beitenu faction to create a joint
electoral list. According to the Haaretz poll, the combined
Likud-Beitenu list would currently win 41 seats in Israel’s 120-seat parliament, the Knesset, and easily pick up enough
ideologically-aligned allies to again form a majority coalition.
Labor would get 21 seats. Those figures match polls conducted
prior to the start of the Gaza operation.

Arab Protests

Israel’s Gaza strikes haven’t won support across the entire
political spectrum. Arab parties in Israel, which together hold
11 seats in the Knesset, have condemned the policy and staged
public protests.

Also criticizing the government is the three-seat Meretz
faction, which among Israel’s Zionist parties has been the most
strongly opposed to Netanyahu’s handling of the peace process
and his support for Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

“It is impossible to ignore the fact that we are in the
midst of a campaign season,” Meretz leader Zehava Gal-On said
on Channel Two television Nov. 17, suggesting the proximity of
elections may have influenced the government’s decision to
initiate the Gaza operation.

Neither Netanyahu, nor Defense Minister Ehud Barak, whose
newly formed Independence party would garner only two Knesset
seats according to the poll, have responded in public to such
criticism. Haaretz reported on Nov. 16 that in a private
discussion, Barak rejected such comments, saying “politics is
in the head only of those who attribute political motives to
us.”

Even if it only partially attains its aims, the Gaza
operation will benefit Netanyahu, according to Tamir Sheafer,
political science professor at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem.

“Surveys usually show that when Israel is engaged in a
military operation or active conflict, support in general
increases for the right-wing, for more hawkish parties and
politicians,” Sheafer said in a phone interview.

“Even now, the political conversation here has shifted
from economic and social issues to the security situation,”
said Sheafer. “And that works to Netanyahu’s advantage.”